THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE PEACEKEEPERS

THREATS AND RESPONSES: THE PEACEKEEPERS; Iraqi Kurds Are Wary Of a Turkish-Led Force

By C. J. CHIVERS

Published: February 23, 2003

KOYA, Iraq, Feb. 20—
The guards at the walled compound here, in their blue berets and polished armored cars, are striking with their professional military air. Their uniforms are pressed. Their weapons look new. Their frames are mostly lean and fit.

They are members of the Peace Monitoring Force, a Turkish-led contingent that has been enforcing a cease-fire between rival Kurdish parties in northern Iraq since 1997.

The force has had many successes. The peacekeepers say they have never suffered an injury or been attacked. The Kurdish parties have stopped fighting, and after an adjournment of several years the joint Kurdish parliament began meeting again last fall.

But it is also a measure of the persistent distrust between Iraqi Kurds and their Turkish neighbors that these men in blue berets are shrouded in deep suspicion these days.

As the possibility of another war nears, this one a campaign to unseat President Saddam Hussein, several accusations can be heard. Kurdish political leaders accuse the peacekeepers of training ethnic Turkmen militias, of preparing to assist a Turkish incursion, and of spying.

A war against Mr. Hussein is likely to involve a northern front opening from Turkey, and Turkish troops will perhaps follow American soldiers at least part way into northern Iraq. The Kurdish officials say they worry that the peacekeepers may play an unexpected role, like guiding Turkish soldiers or providing logistics, military or intelligence support.

Whether such fears ultimately prove justified, Kurdish leaders of parties that once fought each other, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Kurdistan Democratic Party, are asking that the peacekeepers' presence be reassessed.

''Now that there is no problem between the P.U.K. and K.D.P., we think their mission is over, and we would welcome them to go back,'' said Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Dr. Barham Salih, prime minister of the eastern Kurdish zone, controlled by the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, also expressed concerns about the Peace Monitoring Force's mission. ''With the closure of the peace process,'' he said, ''the P.M.F. will no longer be required.''

The peacekeepers themselves describe the Kurdish accusations as baseless -- the stuff of a ''comic strip,'' one of their officers said.

''We will keep to our mission,'' said Capt. Mehmet Emir, a Turkish company commander. ''We are a peace mission. We will stay to that.''

The peacekeepers, 400 strong, began full deployment as British and American diplomats mediated an end to a civil war that had killed an estimated 2,500 to 3,000 people.

They were to patrol the ground between the parties' militias, reporting violations of cease-fire agreements and making a restrained display of international will.

The force's formation represented a compromise. Although the peacekeepers are led by Turkish officers and sergeants, the rank and file is filled with local Turkmen and Assyrians, forming what former President Bill Clinton once described as a ''neutral, indigenous'' force. Washington underwrites part of its work.

Although the effort has shown signs of solidifying -- for example, the former combatants recently opened political offices in their respective capitals -- the peacekeepers say their role remains vital.

''I wish for the two parties to agree and settle their differences, but I think it is their habit to be in conflict between themselves, and maybe in a year or so, they will get into disagreement again,'' Captain Emir said.

Many issues remain unsettled, including how to divide income from petroleum products smuggled into Turkey, territorial boundaries, and a few lingering personal feuds.

Kurds say the peacekeepers want to stay because they have unseen agendas. A chief complaint is that the force, roughly 85 percent Turkmen, serves as a de facto training program for Turkmen militias.

For example, the force's personnel policies include no enlistment contract, and fighters can leave any time, the peacekeepers say. About 10 fighters do so each month, and they are replaced by recruits who receive a month of training and then typically a year or two of professional, Westernized military life.

Kurds say that this rate of turnover, roughly 120 soldiers a year for several years, has produced a startling result: hundreds of fighters who have left the force and are available to serve Turkmen parties, some of whom have tense relations with the Kurds. Kurds believe that the Turkmen minority in Iraq -- roughly 5 percent of the population -- is supported by Turkey and has plans to make land claims against the Kurds in the cities of Mosul and Kirkuk.

''I wonder if it is in the interest of the Kurdish people that inside the P.M.F. military camps, they turn our Kurdistani Turkmen brethren into commandos,'' one man wrote in a letter last year to Hawlati, an independent newspaper.

Some officials also accuse the peacekeepers of directly arming or equipping a group of parties known as the Turkmen Front and of providing it with intelligence. Seven Turkmen Front members, including a senior security official, were arrested in Erbil on Feb. 12, accused by the Kurdistan Democratic Party of plotting to sabotage an Iraqi opposition conference planned for this week, a senior Kurdish official said.

The peacekeepers dismiss accusations of connections to the group.

''We have no links with the Turkmen Front,'' Captain Emir said. ''We are not spies.''

Regardless of the Kurds' official desire, the peacekeepers -- and American officials -- say there is little chance of evicting them now. Any agreement to disband the force would have to involve the United States, Turkey and Britain.

An American official said a review of the mission was a project for later, because for now Turkey considered Iraq as too unstable. ''In the absence of a governmental authority in Baghdad, this is something the Turks are insisting on continuing,'' the official said. ''But obviously, what transpires in Iraq could create a new opportunity to discuss this.''

While some civilians echo the Kurdish government's stand, others express misgivings about the prospect of the peacekeepers' departure.

Simko Karim, a meat vendor here, recalled the years of fighting and many of its attendant problems: the roadblocks, the idled economy, the ambushes on the outskirts. Many of his neighbors were wounded or killed.

''It was a continuous fight in Koya,'' he said. ''It is not bad to keep peace between the two parties. If the P.M.F. was not here, I think the two sides might fight again.''

Photo: Soldiers with the Peace Monitoring Force in northern Iraq, training near Koya, have successfully enforced a cease-fire between warring factions. (Chang W. Lee/The New York Times) Map of Iraq highlighting Koya: Kurdish factions are suspicious of peace monitors, based in Koya.